If you were on Facebook all day, you might not know Burger King’s Twitter account was hacked. Unique to this situation (from a PR perspective) is that the hackers gave credit to McDonald’s. Poor McDonald’s! A PR person’s worst nightmare may be having their social media account hacked. Next on the list might be getting credit where no credit is due wanted. (Mashable does a great job of sharing today’s activity in a timeline fashion if you’re interested.)

Inevitably over the next few days, both Burger King and McDonald’s will be studied for their response to this incident. Lucky for them, they have the benefit of learning from those who’ve gone before them like BP. Not being the leader in this instance is a good thing.

Just as the PR crisis happens via social media, so does the opportunity for others to respond and engage. Every story in the news can be shared or spark a conversation for you or your brand. The key is to not capitalize on them.

So what’s the right way to respond in the moment from your brand? Especially if your brand offers PR services. Locally, three marketing agencies posted a tweet and commentary on the situation. I screened their names and avatars so that opinion wouldn’t be generated based on the account. Each takes a different approach to joining the conversation on the topic. Each approach has benefits and potential downsides.Which firm do you think responded the best? What is your take-away from this situation that you can apply if (in your worst nightmare) your own organization faces a PR crisis?

A few months ago, I wrote about the varied advice I was finding about the right time to post on social media. Advice is one thing, numbers are another. I’m a big fan of researching to find my own answers and seeing if they match ‘trusted’ advice.

Since August, I took a look at all of my tweets posted using BufferApp that had at least 10 clicks or more. What I found was interesting. Considering only those sixty qualifying tweets, they generated 3,081 clicks, 19 retweets and 18 mentions, which averaged 51.35 clicks per tweet.

BufferApp by default recommends sending tweets at four different times through the day on weekdays. While I was using all four recommended times until now, I am planning to adjust this model moving forward. Why? I found the majority of clicks were generated by only three of the posting times.

I did not see a correlation between tweets that generated engagement like retweets and mentions with those that generated clicks. It also didn’t matter if the tweets used a hashtag. In fact, tweets with hashtags generated only 21% of the total clicks.

One other trend I will continue to watch is how frequency of posts affects engagement. Looking at October and November for example, you might think that October was more “successful.” While there were more clicks, I was also posting more frequently. In November, I had less tweets but also a higher average of clicks per tweet. My assumption is that when you’re creating less noise and focusing on content your audience will find relevant, they’re more likely to click. The old supply-and-demand game.

As far as the rest of my findings, I put together this infographic to summarize.

If visuals aren’t your thing, my results could simply be put like this:

For my audience, a perfect tweet to drive traffic would be: “Agree! Great infographic in Mashable blog w/ excellent tips on top productivity. bit.ly/55555 #fortwayne.” posted on a Thursday at 11:11 a.m.

You can read it but I’ll summarize it quickly. It’s the same set of times that BufferApp, Hootsuite and any other app says are the best times. No kidding.

When I first started using BufferApp, my click rates were much higher than before when I was posting them randomly. Having said that, I’ve seen a decline in clicks in recent weeks. I’ve reviewed and content isn’t much different. My phrasing, tone and keywords are all the same. So what gives?

My guess is that I’m not the only one using BufferApp or the Hootsuite scheduler. That likely means my posts are hitting at the same time as everyone else’s, which means the information is coming out of a fire hose. I don’t know about you, but I’m likely to step away from the fire hose rather than continue to stand underneath it.

I think the trend in clicks highlights this behavior change by the audience. Will the tools refresh their algorithms to capture where (in time) the audience has moved to? Will the audience come back to their normal habits after a brief period? Will you change your strategy?

Out of the blue, I started to notice a large variety of twitter clients and apps appearing in my stream as the tools identified making the posts for those I’m following. Many of these tools I’ve never even heard of.

It made me wonder:

Do people notice tools (for efficiency) are being used? (See my tweets above. See the “…via Hoosuite” in the details? In Hootsuite’s dashboard it adds the notation. I notice you no longer see that via Twitter.com unless you use the “expand” feature on each tweet.) Which makes me wonder if people “can” notice the distinction?

Do people realize that even though accounts may ‘appear’ active, they may in fact be on ‘auto-pilot?’

And where did all of these apps come from?! Seriously.

So, how does your twitter garden grow? Are you using the mainstream twitter clients or do you use one of the outliers? Why?

PS – yes, totally hokey but for some reason, looking at the lists made me think of this classic nursery rhyme. Blame it on Mister Rogers.

Earlier this year, I attended the FW Chamber‘s Media and PR Summit. I thought I might find some of the information to be new and anticipated it would be a good networking opportunity. Boy did I underestimate that summit! I learned valuable information in nearly every session and walked away impressed with the talent in our community.

Based on that experience, I highly recommend you attend the Social Media Summit July 18 from 8a-1p at the FW Chamber. Tickets are only $49 (early; $69 after 7/9) for members or $99 (early; $129 after 7/9) for non-members. Your registration includes lunch from Nelson’s and four sessions you select:

If you’re interested in my session, here’s a preview over on the Chamber’s blog.

If you’re convinced this event is something you shouldn’t miss, click here to register now. Personally, I can’t think of a better use of $50 for your business than to invest in growing your knowledge about a medium that isn’t going anywhere.

What an exciting time! I’m so thankful to have been accepted to share a bit at two upcoming conferences. Each conference is as unique as what I’ll be speaking on. Here’s some info on each. Let me know if I’ll see you there!

This local event is being held for the second year and is organized by an all volunteer group. All topics through the day will highlight an opportunity to #ReThinkFW. This is an amazing opportunity to hear from 20-somethings, community legends, physicians, volunteers, architects and more.

I’ll be speaking on the “Power of Two” and how collaborating and connecting can make our individual ideas more successful. Believing in an abundance of opportunities, we can take small and large steps to rethink our community and our potential.

A totally different type of event, this annual PRC conference offers best practice learning from peers in healthcare and through research. This is my first time attending and presenting and I’m looking forward to connecting with others in my field.

I’ll be presenting during a breakout on how to use social media to reach new heights. From the brochure: “In this session, you will learn how a non-profit health system leveraged the right resources and successfully incorporated social media into the opening of a new regional medical center. See how the strategy was built, why specific social media channels were used and the results of the social media engagement.”

Oh how I love this reminder! It applies to everything doesn’t it? Work. Family. Friends. Community. Social media.

It also reminds me I need to finish my video application for #TEDxFortWayne! I’m applying to talk about the “Power of Two.” It’s a concept I believe applies everywhere, but nowhere more readily than my hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana. It’s not 6-degrees of separation here; it’s 2. And when everyone knows someone, how more important is the reminder to be nice. After all, the world is a small town.

And a big thanks to my friend Rachel for sharing this quote with me! Are there any quotes you’re loving lately? Something inspiring you pinned recently? I’d love you to share it here!

Oh my! Pinterest has been updated! Aside from the layout, font and placing the editing features more front and center, I don’t notice anything extremely different. I have noticed that it more strongly encourages me to post to Facebook and put Pinterest in my timeline. No need to thank me, Facebook friends, but I won’t be doing this.

Call me silly, but I don’t like to mix my social media much. There is a time and place for everything but I like to keep my pins of light fixtures on Pinterest, my videos of my kids on Facebook, links to work-related articles on LinkedIn and knowledge share on Twitter. Obviously, there’s always an exception to the rule and things get posted in several if not all locations. But like I said, I try to make it the exception.

Today marks my three year anniversary Twittiversary of @HSchoegler on Twitter. What a fun three years it has been! I’ve met so many of you via Twitter and often those online exchanges have resulted in personal relationships. I love when social media turns to real-life social or professional.

Here are a few of my Twitter stats (at time of writing this post):

8,115 Tweets sent

7.41 avg. tweets sent per day

2,697 Followers

2,245 Following

174 list inclusions

19 lists created

1st ranking in “Northeast Indiana” by Twitaholic.com (I’m guessing most local social media users list the city “Fort Wayne, IN”)

$1,530 profile value according to TweetValue.com(Does anyone know where I can cash in? I didn’t think so.)

And just because I think visually, here’s a word cloud of my top 300 words tweeted in the first three months of 2012.

And what girl needs an excuse to buy herself something? Not this one. Thankfully, I discovered glass is an appropriate modern anniversary gift. I’m considering this sweet “tweet” mug an anniversary present to myself.